There has been a long tradition in making ice structures, but the development of technical improvements for making ice buildings is a new field with just a handful of researchers. Most of the projects were realized by professors in cooperation with their students as part of their education in architecture and civil engineering. The following professors have realized ice projects in this setting: Heinz Isler realized some experiments since the 1950s; Tsutomu Kokawa created in the past three decades several ice domes in the north of Japan with a span up to 25 m; Lancelot Coar realized a number of fabric formed ice shell structures including fiberglass bars and hanging fabric as a mold for an ice shell in 2011 and in 2015 he produced an fabric-formed ice origami structure in cooperation with MIT (Caitlin Mueller) and VUB (Lars de Laet). Arno Pronk realized several ice projects such as the 2004 artificially cooled igloo, in 2014 and 2015 dome structures with an inflatable mold in Finland and in 2016–2019, an ice dome, several ice towers and a 3D printed gridshell of ice in Harbin (China) as a cooperation between the Universities of Eindhoven & Leuven (Pronk) and Harbin (Wu and Luo). In cooperation between the University of Alberta and Eindhoven two ice beams were realized during a workshop in 2020. In this paper we will present the motivation and learning experiences of students involved in learning-by-doing by realizing one large project in ice. The 2014–2016 projects were evaluated by Sanders and Overtoom; using questionnaires among the participants by mixed cultural teams under extreme conditions. By comparing the results in different situations and cultures we have found common rules for the success of those kinds of educational projects. In this paper we suggest that the synergy among students participating in one main project without a clear individual goal can be very large. The paper will present the success factors for projects to be perceived as a good learning experience.

Mindlin plate theory is employed to obtain the free vibration response of an annular moderately thick plate with a circumferential open crack with fixed-free boundary conditions. To model the crack, a set of continuously distributed rotational springs are employed at the crack location. The corresponding spring stiffness value is a function of the crack depth and is given as a closed-form function. To obtain the vibration behaviour, the eigenvalue problem is solved to obtain the natural frequencies and mode shapes. The current method is verified by comparing the results with those obtained from finite element analysis. Through a parametric study, the effects of the crack depth and its radial location on the natural frequencies and mode shapes are investigated. The results show that for a constant crack depth, the reduction in natural frequency is a strong function of the radial location of the crack.

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Design in nature is an iterative and interdependent process. Previous research shows that in some projects, 50% of this process contains waste. The Last Planner System (LPS) proved its efficiency in planning and controlling the execution phase. However, due to the nature of the design process, implementing LPS at this stage contains many constraints. Results show that the Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) and LPS together can significantly improve design workflow, still some issues remain that do not let the IPD project achieve the full potential of LPS in managing a design process. In this research the main constraints are studied and divided into five categories. Recently, many researchers studied the benefits of implementing LPS and how to optimize this method, especially in the execution phase, but there is no integrated framework that contains the available tools and techniques for overcoming constraints in using LPS at the design process. This study indicates that multiple strategies need to be adopted for increasing the applicability of LPS at the design process of a construction project. This paper proposes an integrated framework for addressing design constraints and optimizing the applicability of LPS in the design process on IPD projects.

Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT) is a reliable alternative to heavy structural components due to its dimensional stability and environmental benefits. However, there is currently no universally accepted design method for calculating the load-bearing capacity and deformation of a CLT diaphragm. The main objective of this study is to develop an analytical model for diaphragm deflection calculation when the major direction of panels is perpendicular to the load and confirm the results with the Finite Element (FE) analysis. In the absence of an experimental study aligned with the derived formula, an FE model was developed based on a full-scale diaphragm test subjected to loading parallel and perpendicular to the panel length. A parametric study was performed on the influence of the diaphragm length and the panel-to-panel connection stiffness. The contribution of bending, shear, and connection's slip to the total diaphragm deflection was quantified. The study reveals that the flexibility of the floor is primarily influenced by two factors: the shear deformation of the CLT panels when the load is perpendicular to the panel length and the stiffness of the panel-topanel connection when the load is parallel to the panel length.